Luxuriating in August’s shaggy garden
August 13, 2009
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I have become that lady who rides around town with bouquets of flowers in her panniers.
There’s nothing as fine as a soft landing, leaving one garden and falling into the bounty of the other one. Thanks to the generous watering skills of Gabrielle and the plucking skills of Han, the Slim Pickins’ kitchen (and flower!) garden not only survived my visit down south, but is colourful and brimming with so many nibbles (and flowers!) that I am forced to throw dinner parties to deal with the abundance.
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Han photographs her Fleur-op! style bouquet
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Did I plant beans and cukes?
It never ceases to amaze me how much a garden produces, even when it produces relatively little. In the urban agriculture circles I frequent, the subject of productivity is constantly being brought up by bean counters, most whom rarely eat beans nor do they have experience knowing how many beans it takes to fill a satisfied belly. The huge effect of my garden on my quality of (social) life would be difficult to measure.
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A bed bolted lupine, fennel, shiso and bright lites chard
Maybe it’s because I prefer to forage that I’m not one to plant rows of veg. When picking my way through the garden I shout ‘CHARD!!’ and ‘SHISO-tje!’ as if meeting the suddenly grown up children of old friends. Filling my bike bags to the brim, I love discovering that there’s enough plant-matter to feed me and a few friends in a ‘vegetable-atarian’ style for an entire week before starting at the other end of the garden again.
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Garden shag
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The prettiness before the glean and clean begins
debra at 16:29 | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
Harvesting lavender
July 19, 2009
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It’s been made clear to me that I’m doing this lavender harvesting-thing entirely too late in the season, and that if I had harvested it 2-3 weeks ago it would have been much, much more potent. But it is only now that I have the time and inclination to collect the stuff. Upon my return to the Occitanian kitchen garden I am ecstatic to find the bushes bent from the weight of fat-blossomed stalks, all loudly a’buzz with what appears to be an entire hive of REAL bees. No look-alike species and inadvertent pollinators here. I pause for a nano second to feel guilty before cutting away the flowers. May this act encourage the bees to enjoy my calabash, pumpkin, butternut, luffah and zillion other pollen laden flowers that are blooming all around, though surely the lavender would have made someone’s honey taste amazing.
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After cutting the lavender off 4 plants, my basket is bulgingly brimming, slung over my shoulder it’s so heavy that it makes for an uncomfortable ride back. I spread the stalks out on a table cloth to dry, and the next day they are ready to turn. Thanks to yesterday’s wind, today the flowers are dry enough to pluck from the stem. I wonder if there is a word for this activity, because it’s taking lots of time. (In Dutch I would call it rissen, like what one does with currants.) There is a high pain-in-the-ass factor but every time I walk back into the room where the lavender lays drying, I ‘do’ a few bunches, and now it appears that I’ve inadvertently done half. This doesn’t stop me wondering whether this work would better suited to nuns and virgins. As drudgery goes, this is pleasantly meditative work, but drudgery it remains.
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I urge myself forward only because I know some underwear and linens and a closet full of woolens that will be pleased with my efforts, once I get these fiddly buds into piddly muslin pillows. Think I’ll make a pillow for my cranky self as well. In the mean time, my hands have never smelled better though my nose hurts, in fact the fragrance is so strong that it’s giving me a massive headache. Weird consolation for a late harvest.
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1 kilo lavender bud. Street value; 12 euros. Personal value; priceless.
debra at 18:32 | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Speaking of the Future…
how ’bout that market?
June 15, 2009
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Market of the Future poster-child Juli Mata
You’re probably wondering how the future turned out. Last weekend’s was a culmination of the test-phase with FREEHOUSE’s de Markt van Morgen / the Market of the Future, in Rotterdam Zuid’s Afrikaanderwijk. Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking has been experimenting the past months with a Free Kitchen using existing neighbourhood food facilities, food flows and working with local entrepreneurs to investigate what the Afrikaanderwijk would produce if it designed its own food products.
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Yvonne G. unpacks the Groenhart Family ginger beer, fruit syrups & preserves
The final event was an two-day market and to be clear, Lucky Mi’s involvement was just a part of this enormous FREEHOUSE project. On the first day, there were interventions into the business-as-usual format of the Saturday Afrikaandermarkt, orchestrated by FREEHOUSE and representing every area of this large urban outdoor market. Many of the stalls were re-styled and entirely new, locally produced product lines were unleashed on an eager public. The Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking Free Kitchen held court in the food court obviously, testing out the new market stalls designed by artist Dré Wapenaar. We gave away yummy taste-tests of our pickles & kimchi, an array of hummous with lavash bread from the Ata Bakery, ginger beers & kefir drinks and fruit syrups & preserves by Yvonne Groenhart c.s., and the delicious sambals by Dr. Mau.
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All natural, all yummy, vibrant hummous
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Chef Abdel and Lenn Verjans plate pickles
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Market stalls designed by artist, Dré Wapenaar
One the Sunday, (2nd market day), the ENTIRE market represented the FREEHOUSE vision for the regeneration of the Afrikaandermarkt. Improved products, services and market interactions, a more vibrant Afrikaandermarkt was the result of months of work. The next posts will tell all about the various interventions made by many artists, designers and of course locals looking to keep the Afrikaanderwijk economy in the hood where it can bloom to the benefit of all those that live there.
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Super-seller Alia with Dr. Mau sambals
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Please check out an image selection of the Market of the Future, remembering at all times my Creative Commons license: no commercial/no derivs/credits/linkage!!!!
Jeanne van Heeswijk and Dennis Kaspori’s FREEHOUSE PROJECT
Markt van Morgen & Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking graphic identities designed by Roger Teeuwen
debra at 17:45 | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
